Pay-to-reach startup crippled by self-doubt after CZ snub

A confused crypto firm that was hoping to play a major role in Changpeng Zhao’s so-called “pay-to-reach” project says it’s now “grappling with profound self-doubt” after the former Binance CEO announced he had chosen to move forward with a rival firm instead.

Xnect says it had already engaged with the $BNB Chain team on a launch plan, and that $BNB Chain reposted its online video tutorial twice and recognized it as “the pioneering pay-to-reach protocol.”

However, despite this, earlier today, Zhao announced on X that he would instead be partnering with rival firm Reachme.io.

After Zhao teased his pay-to-reach plans earlier this month, Xnect, like many other startups, rushed to get onboard the project, which attempts to eliminate spam messages by charging people for the privilege of contacting you.

For the record, Zhao tried charging people $120 to get in touch with him but still wasn’t happy with the quality of messages he received.

According to Xnect, it was left “taken aback” by Zhao’s apparent u-turn and says the snub resulted in collaborators questioning “whether our existence is even necessary.”

Read more: Binance founder CZ made $12B overnight when Donald Trump won

The company also implied that $BNB Chain unfairly chose Reachme.io and described the rival as “another yet-to-mature product.” However, Xnect also said its post was “not a complaint,” but a plea to learn what it did wrong.

In response to Xnect, Zhao said, “It’s out of my control when multiple teams embark on the same idea,” and clarified, “I did not make it a competition, nor did I promise to work with every (or any) team that tries.”

He added, “There is no fair or unfair here,” and that he regrets not getting in touch sooner. He also disclosed that he never installs extensions — a reference to Xnect basing its project on a Chrome extension.

In response to Zhao’s advice, Xnect said it is already working on a web version.